The rules of photography don’t matter! There I said what I said! Artistic vision matters. Audience engagement matters. There are volumes of books and articles talking about the rules of composition, rules of exposure, rules of sharpness, rules of white balance. While these may be important to understand I find it mundane once you grasp a rudimentary understanding. To me, the worst part is this is what we teach! We don’t teach or teach as much as we should, challenge the rules, innovate, create YOUR vision and YOUR rule.
One mistake I made in my younger days is not studying art. Where I grew up I believe influenced the reason for not studying art. It wasn’t considered manly. Fast-forward to today and I enjoy studying art, music, philosophy. While art and music have their versions of the rules look at the number of rule-breakers. Philosophers have spent time questioning the rules in an attempt to understand the reasoning. There are those who would argue that the rules are based on how to best make the subject or overall image or project stand out but then aren’t we just one of the crowd?
Use your artistic vision to fulfill your creative desire and to hell with the rules.
Photographer Clay 
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